Pages

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Don't Be That Guy (WTNV's The Apache Tracker)

Carrying on with our tradition this week of thinking really,
really hard about stuff that most people don’t think about at all, let’s talk
about cultural appropriation!

Yes, I know, you’re just as excited as I am. Or, it’s
possible, deeply confused. What is cultural appropriation, I hear some of you
ask? Well, don’t worry. That’s what we’re going to talk about today, in depth
and detail and probably some other things besides. Specifically, though, I want
to talk about Welcome to Night Vale
and its approach to cultural appropriation, because it’s, well, kind of
different.

But first, let’s set the stage and talk about what precisely
Welcome to Night Vale actually is.
Which is hard. Because what it is, is weird.

Welcome to Night Vale is
a podcast created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, put out by Commonplace Books. It’s
voiced by Cecil Baldwin, who also gives his name to the main character, and
consists of news reports, a la News from
Lake Woebegon by Garrison Keillor. The news reports are just the kind of
dull community radio highlights that you can imagine really originated in the
small town of Night Vale, New Mexico, except for the part where they are
completely horrifying and detail parts of small town life that no one outside
of a Stephen King story is very familiar with.

What do I mean? Well, in the very first episode, Cecil, the
radio host, gives some tips on letting your children play out in the desert
outside of town. Specifically, those tips include taking cover when the
helicopters come, but only when certain colors of helicopters come, because
some of them belong to the Sheriff’s Secret Police, while others belong to the
Shady Governmental Agency, and still others are probably military, while some
are scary and mysterious and we don’t know where they come from don’t make eye
contact.

Also there is a dog park into which no one is allowed to
bring their dogs, and at which no one should look for fear of upsetting the
mysterious hooded figures.So, yeah. It’s a little hard to explain. What makes the show
work, though, rather than just being a biweekly half hour of terror, is that
the characters in the town are made to come alive. There’s Cecil himself, a
perpetually chipper and genial resident of the town who thinks it’s all lovely
here, Old Woman Josie, who lives out by the used car lot with a bunch of angels
named Erika, and Mayor Pamela Winchell, who is facing reelection soon and going
up against Hiram McDaniels, a five-headed dragon in prison for tax evasion, and
the Faceless Old Woman Who Lives In Your House. Also, there’s Carlos, a
scientist studying the town, with whom Cecil is hopelessly besotted.It’s not just random weirdness, because while these
characters sound completely bonkers, they actually have stories and motivations
and arcs and all that. They aren’t jokes, they’re people.

And of those people, one of them is perfectly suited to the
discussion of our point. You see what I did there? I did a thing. Appreciate my
segues. They take effort.

One of the recurring characters on the show is The Apache
Tracker (no other name given), a white man who wears an “insulting” Native
American costume and claims to have ancient Indian magic. And sadly, that
wouldn’t be all that weird for a character on a science fiction or fantasy
show. We run into it all the time. No, what’s weird here is how everyone reacts
to the Apache Tracker. Specifically Cecil.

Cecil freaking hates the guy.

It’s really interesting. Every time Cecil mentions the
Apache Tracker, even when congratulating him for something, some heroic action,
or whatever, he starts by commenting on how distasteful the Apache Tracker’s
cultural appropriation is, and how insulting his costume is, how he isn’t
fooling anyone, all that stuff.

Cecil makes it very clear every time that the Apache
Tracker’s use of Native American culture for his own benefit is not okay, and
will never be okay.Now, the issue gets a little weirder when the Apache Tracker
disappears for a few weeks, only to turn up again as an actual Native American,
who can only speak Russian. Did I mention it’s a weird show? Well, anyway, this
throws kind of a level of confusion into the works, regarding whether or not we
can now say that the Apache Tracker is performing acts of cultural appropriation.
And no real easy answer is given.

But the question is
asked.

And in a weird way, that’s what matters. When the Apache
Tracker appears as an actual Native American, it doesn’t erase what he did
before. It isn’t all okay now just because his skin tone matches his claims.
His behavior is still called into question. Which is a good thing.

Welcome to Night Vale
isn’t just making a joke about stupid weirdos here, it’s making a pretty strong
statement about how we should view acts of cultural appropriation, and how we
should think about our ties to our own culture. Going back to the beginning,
cultural appropriation isn’t just a thing where you borrow from another
culture, it has to do with intent and usage. It’s when you take an idea or a
story or a costume or a religion out of context and use it for your own
purposes. It’s when you take from a
culture and claim it as your own.

The Apache Tracker is slammed, not just because he’s kind of
a strange guy, but because he has taken Native American culture and used it for
his own ends. He’s appropriated it. And a magical skin change doesn’t make that
go away. It’s attitudinal. It’s, well, I feel like we’re talking about this a
lot this week, but it’s a form of selfishness.

You can tell I work with kids, can’t you.

Anyway, the Apache Tracker is slammed not for appreciating
Native American culture, but by using it in order to make himself more
interesting. He’s not disregarded because he thinks its cool. He’s a jerk
because takes what he finds valuable about the culture and uses it for his own
gains, rather than leaving it in context. That’s the real problem with him.Because there is cultural appropriation, and there is also
cultural sharing. When I went to Vietnam, we traveled to the very north there
and, in visiting a market where local indigenous tribeswomen sold their
clothes, I bought a jacket and a couple of belts. Now, is this cultural
appropriation? Well, it’s complicated. When I bought the items, I did it
because first of all, they’re beautiful, second of all, I wanted to financially
support these really cool women, and third because the women saw me and my
whiteness and pretty much grabbed me and shoved me into the clothes because
they thought it was hilarious. (It was. We have pictures.)That’s cultural sharing. They wanted me to wear and buy the
clothes because they thought it was fun, and also because they, like most
people, like money.But. I don’t really ever wear that jacket now that I live in
the US again. I mean, I pull it out occasionally, but mostly I leave it in the
closet until I can find a better way to display it. Why? Because outside of
that situation, there really isn’t any reason for me to wear that jacket that
isn’t for my own edification. When I wear it now, it’s not because I need to
keep warm – I have much warmer coats. It isn’t to fit in – this thing does not
fit in, trust me. And it’s not because I’ve been invited to do so – I doubt
those women even remember me, and no one here is particularly invested in my
wardrobe.If I were to wear the jacket tomorrow, I would only be doing
it because I want to look cool. That
is cultural appropriation. And that is what the Apache Tracker is doing.

Really? Really? Really.

Why are we talking about this now? Well, this is Native
American Heritage month, which is fitting. Thanksgiving is a time of weirdness,
here in America, when we look back out our past and pretend we can’t see all
that nasty genocide, choosing instead to focus on the happy things, like a nice
dinner and some cultural sharing.

But in the process of sanctifying Thanksgiving, we seem to
have done a few other things as well. Like dressed our kids up as “Indians”. Or
made little headdresses out of construction paper. Or told decontextualized
Native American myths at the dinner table in the hopes of bringing some
“authenticity” to the proceedings.

No. Stop. Don’t.

I’m not saying it’s bad to be interested in Native American
culture. It’s not. It’s genuinely very interesting. But I am saying that it’s
important, crucially important, to not cross a line. To do it because you are
genuinely interested in them, and not because you want people to be interested
in you.

Don’t do it for selfish reasons. That’s kind of the whole
thing. Just don’t be a jerk. Don’t be the Apache Tracker. Just don’t.